Fire in the East

by Harry Sidebottom

  Winter in Arete was a different beast, gentler but capricious. Most nights in December and January there was a frost. On the days that it rained, many as the old year died but fewer after the solstice, it rained hard. The ground turned into a sea of mud. The air remained chill. Then the strong north-eastern winds would blow away the clouds, the sun would dawn in splendour, warm as a spring day by the northern ocean, and the land would dry - before it rained again.

  In some ways life in Arete continued as normal. The priests and the devout celebrated the festivals of their particular gods - Sol Invictus, Jupiter, and Janus, Aphlad, Atargatis and Azzanathcona. Criers preceded the processions through the streets warning those of less, different or no faith to lay down their tools lest the priests and their deities catch the ill-omened sight of men at work on the holy day. Ballista had bowed to popular pressure and rescinded his edict banning gatherings of ten or more. He hoped that this concession might make the other stringencies he had introduced more bearable. Certainly this concession was welcome at the two great festivals of the winter, at the Saturnalia, the seven days of present-giving, gambling and drinking in late December when slaves dined like their masters, and again at the Compitalia, the three days in early January when extra rations, including wine, were issued to the servile.

  As ever, the first of January, the kalends, saw the garrison and those provincials eager to impress the authorities renew their oath of loyalty to the emperors and their family. On the same day, new magistrates took up office, Ogelos replacing Anamu as archon in Arete. As ever, the soldiers looked forward to the seventh of January: pay day, with a roast dinner to follow the sacrifices - to Jupiter Optimus Maximus an ox, to Juno, Minerva and Salus a cow, to Father Mars a bull. As ever, rents had to be paid on the first of January; debtors fretted at the approach of the kalends, nones and ides of each month, when interest on loans became due; and the superstitious feared the unlucky ‘black days’ that followed.

  Yet in many, many ways this winter in Arete was abnormal. Day by day the city became more like an armed camp. Under the slow but careful eye of Mamurra the physical defences of the town began to take shape. Gangs of impressed labourers tore down the proud tower tombs of the necropolis and teams of oxen and donkeys hauled the debris to the town. More labourers heaped the rubble against the inner and outer faces of the western wall, slowly shaping it into the core of huge ramps - the glacis and counter-glacis. Once padded with reeds and faced with mud brick it was hoped these ramps would keep the walls standing in the face of whatever the Sassanids could throw at them. As each area of the necropolis was cleared, further gangs of workmen started to dig the wide ditch that would hinder approach to the desert wall.

  The interior of the town was likewise loud with activity. Blacksmiths beat ploughshares into swords, arrow points and the heads of javelins. Carpenters wove osiers and wood to make shields. Fletchers worked flat out to produce the innumerable arrows and artillery bolts demanded by the military.

  In every home, bar and brothel - at least when there were no Roman soldiers within earshot - the abnormality of the winter was discussed. On the one hand, the big barbarian bastard was roundly condemned: homes, tombs and temples desecrated, the slaves freed, the free reduced to the state of the servile, civic liberties stripped away, the modesty of wives and daughters compromised. On the other, only the Dux offered any hope: perhaps all the sacrifices would prove worth while. Round and round the arguments went, down the backstreets and the muddy alleys from the little sanctuary of the Tyche of Arete behind the Palmyrene Gate to the stinking lean-tos down by the waterside. The citizens of Arete were both outraged and scared. They were also tired. The Dux was driving them hard.

  The soldiers were also working hard. On New Year’s day Ballista had unveiled his dispositions for the defence of the town. No one, not even Acilius Glabrio, had laughed. The northerner had concentrated his manpower on the western wall facing the open desert. Here the battlements would be manned by no fewer than eight of the twelve centuries of Legio IIII Scythica and all six centuries of Cohors XX Palmyrenorum. The arrangement was that each section of battlement for two towers would be defended by one century of legionaries and one of auxiliaries. An additional century from IIII Scythica would be stationed at the main gate. At the extreme north of the wall only one century of Cohors XX would be available to cover the last four towers, but here the northern ravine curled round to provide additional defence and the towers in any case were closer together.

  The other walls were far less well defended. The northern wall facing the ravine was held by only one century of IIII Scythica and two dismounted turmae of Cohors XX. The eastern wall facing the Euphrates would be guarded by the irregular numerus of Anamu, with one century of IIII Scythica seeing to the Porta Aquaria, the tunnels and the two gates down by the water. Finally, the garrison of the southern wall above the ravine would consist of the numeri of Iarhai and Ogelos, with just one dismounted turma of Cohors XX guarding the postern gate.

  The real weakness of the plan was the small number of reserves - just two centuries of IIII Scythica, one stationed around the campus martius and one in the great caravanserai, and two turmae of Cohors XX, one guarding the granaries and one the new artillery magazine. At current levels of manning, that amounted to a mere 140 legionaries and 72 auxiliaries.

  Yet the plan won guarded approval. Surely the main danger did lie on the western wall. It would be held by no fewer than 560 men from IIII Scythica and 642 from Cohors XX. The auxiliaries were bowmen and the legionaries expert hand-to-hand. They would be backed by twenty-five pieces of artillery, nine throwing stones and sixteen bolts.

  The senior officers had been further reassured when Ballista outlined the additional measures that would be put in place when the glacis, counter-glacis and ditch were complete. The last two hundred yards to the western wall would be sown with traps. There would be thousands of caltrops, spiked metal balls. No matter which way a caltrop landed, a wicked spike always pointed upwards. There would be pits. Some would contain spikes, others the huge jars which had been requisitioned, filled with the limited stockpile of naptha. Stones to drop on the enemy would be stockpiled on the walls. There would be cranes equipped with chains, both to drop the larger stones and to hook any Sassanid rams which neared the wall. Large metal bowls of sand would be heated over fires. At the siege of Novae, white-hot sand had proved nearly as effective as had the naptha at Aquileia.

  On the sixth of January, his plans well in hand, Ballista decided he needed a drink. Not an effete Greek or Roman symposium, but a proper drink. He asked Maximus if he could find a decent bar - does the Pontifex Maximus shit in the woods? - and tell Mamurra that he was welcome to join them. It was the day after the nones of January, one of the ‘black days’, but Ballista had not grown up with the superstitions of the Romans.

  ‘This looks all right.’ Ballista ran his eyes over the bar. The room and the girls looked clean. On the wall opposite him was a painting of a couple having sex balanced on two tightropes. The girl was on her hands and knees, the man taking her from behind and drinking a cup of wine. He looked out at the viewer with a complacent air.

  ‘I chose it because I heard that Acilius Glabrio had ruled it off limits for his legionaries,’ said Maximus.

  ‘Why?’ Mamurra asked.

  ‘Oh, because when he comes here he likes some privacy to be buggered senseless by the barmen,’ replied Maximus.

  Mamurra looked owlishly at the Hibernian before starting to laugh. Ballista joined in.

  A pretty blond girl with big breasts, few clothes and a fixed smile came over with their drinks and some things to eat. Maximus asked her name. As she bent over, the Hibernian slid his hand down her tunic and played with one of her breasts. He tweaked her nipple until it was erect. ‘Maybe see you later,’ he called after her as she left.

  ‘Poor girl. Working here must be like walking round with her tunic pulled up, endlessly being pawed by bastards like you,’ said Ballista.

&
nbsp; ‘Just because you’re not getting any,’ Maximus replied. ‘Not even from Bathshiba.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about Massilia?’ Ballista’s words closed the exchange and the three men drank in silence for a while.

  ‘Right, let’s talk about the two things we have to talk about. Get them out of the way so we can relax.’ Ballista paused, and the others looked expectantly at him. ‘Who do you think killed Scribonius Mucianus?’

  ‘Turpio,’ Maximus replied with no hesitation. Ballista looked sharply at Mamurra, who quickly swore he would not speak of this conversation to anyone else. ‘He had motive: Scribonius was blackmailing him. He had opportunity: he was Scribonius’s second-in-command. The timing fits: on Turpio’s own account Scribonius disappeared two days before Turpio left to meet us. And without Scribonius around to mess up his story, Turpio has done well. Rather than being punished he has been promoted to Scribonius’s position. We have not traced the money Scribonius embezzled; Turpio probably has that too. He’s a five-to-one on certainty.’

  ‘If he did it, he had an accomplice,’ said Mamurra. ‘It would take at least two men to drag a body down there.’ Seeing the look Ballista was giving him, Mamurra continued, ‘After you left, I got Castricius to take me.’

  ‘But in the days before he was killed Scribonius talked about having found out something that would make everything all right,’ said Ballista, ‘maybe something to make me overlook his corruption and his running his unit into the ground. It would have to be something so important that someone would kill to keep it a secret. They killed him and searched his body to check he had nothing on him to implicate them. They took away his writing block. The evidence was written there.’

  ‘We only have Turpio’s word for the last mutterings of Scribonius,’ said Maximus. Ballista acknowledged this and asked the Hibernian to check if anyone in Cohors XX could confirm Turpio’s account, and to be discreet, very discreet.

  ‘Right, what about the other thing? Who burnt down our artillery magazine?’

  ‘Bagoas.’ Again there was no hesitation before Maximus spoke. ‘All the legionaries and some others are saying that it was Bagoas.’

  ‘And do you think he did it?’

  ‘No. He was with Calgacus at the time. Sure, the Persian boy hates Rome - although not as much as he hates tent-dwellers - but he does not see himself as an underhand saboteur. He sees himself as a scout - one brave man venturing alone into the camp of his enemies, collecting information, ferreting out their deep secrets, then returning openly in a blaze of glory to the bosom of his people to point out where to place the battering rams, where to dig the mines, how to overthrow the walls.’

  ‘The boy must be nearly recovered from the beating,’ said Mamurra. ‘What are you going to do about him when he is up and about?’

  ‘Either make sure he does not escape, or help him on his way making sure he takes the intelligence we want the Persians to have with him.’ Ballista took a long drink before continuing. ‘Well, if he did not burn the artillery, who did?’

  This time Maximus did not jump in. He remained silent, his quick eyes darting from one to the other of his companions. Mamurra’s mouth stayed tightly closed. His massive, almost cubic head tipped slightly to the right as he studied the ceiling. No one spoke for quite some time. Eventually Ballista started trying to answer his own question.

  ‘Whoever it was wanted our defence to fail. They wanted the Persians to take the town. So, who here in Arete, soldier or civilian, might want the Persians to take the town?’

  ‘Turpio,’ Maximus said again. Seeing the scepticism on the faces of the other two, he hurried on. ‘Somewhere out there is evidence - evidence he cannot suppress - that he killed Scribonius. He knows this evidence will come to light at some point. So Turpio prefers the promises of a new life under the Sassanids to the certainty of ultimate disgrace and death under Rome.’

  ‘Wel! ... it is possible,’ said Ballista, ‘but there is nothing to support it.’ Mamurra nodded.

  ‘Right, if you do not like Turpio, I give you Acilius Glabrio, patrician and traitor.’ This time both Ballista and Mamurra smiled straight away.

  ‘You just don’t like him,’ said Ballista.

  ‘No ... no, I don’t like him - I cannot stand the odious little prick - but that is not the point.’ The Hibernian pressed on. ‘No, no ... listen to me’ - he turned to Ballista - the point is that he does not like you. Our touchy little aristocrat cannot bear to take orders from a jumped-up, hairy, thick, unpleasant barbarian like you. The Sassanids play on the little bugger’s vanity, offer to make him satrap of Babylon or Mesopotamia or something, and he sells us all down the river. After all, what do a bunch of ghastly barbarians, Syrians and common soldiers matter compared with the dignitas of one of the Acilii Glabriones?’

  ‘No, you are wrong.’ For once there was no pause for reflection before Mamurra spoke. The great square face turned to Ballista. ‘Acilius Glabrio does not dislike you. He hates you. Every order of yours he has to obey is like a wound. He wants to see you dead. But he would like to see you humiliated first. I agree with Maximus that he could be behind the fire - but not that he would go over to the Persians. What is the point in being an Acilius Glabrio if you are not in Rome? Possibly he wants to hamstring your defence of this town. Then, when you have been exposed as a stupid blundering barbarian - sorry, Dominus - he steps in to save the day.’

  ‘It could be,’ said Ballista. ‘But I can think of about forty thousand other potential traitors - the whole population of this town. Let’s be honest, they have little reason to love us.’

  ‘If the traitor is a townsman, we need only look to the rich,’ said Mamurra. ‘The fire was started with naptha. It is expensive. Only the rich here in Arete could afford it. If the traitor is a townsman, he is on the boule, the council.’

  Ballista nodded slowly. He had not thought of that, but it was true.

  ‘And who are more important on the council than the caravan protectors?’ Maximus interrupted. ‘And all three of them have links to the Sassanid empire. And now all three of them are entrusted with defending the walls. We are all completely fucked, fucked beyond belief!’

  The blond girl came over with more drinks. Her smile became more fixed than ever as Maximus pulled her on to his lap.

  ‘So,’ said Ballista, turning his gaze to Mamurra, ‘a rogue officer or an alienated councillor - we don’t know which.’

  ‘But we know that it has only just begun,’ Mamurra added.

  ‘If it were you, what would you do next?’ Ballista’s question hung for some time as Mamurra thought. With an ease born of practice the blond girl giggled like she meant it and parted her thighs to admit Maximus’s hand.

  ‘I would poison the cisterns,’ Mamurra finally replied. There was a long pause. In the background the girl giggled again. ‘I would contaminate the food stocks ... sabotage the artillery.’ Mamurra was speeding up. ‘I would make sure I had a way of communicating with the Sassanids, then one dark night I would open a gate or throw a rope over an unguarded stretch of wall.’ The girl sighed. ‘Oh, and there is one other thing that I would do.’

  ‘What?’ said Ballista.

  ‘I would kill you.’

  Obsessio

  (Spring-Autumn AD256)

  XII

  ‘“Beware the ides of March.”’ The telones shook his head sadly as he watched the cavalcade pass. “Calpurnia turned in her sleep and muttered ... beware the ides of March.”’

  After the last horseman had jingled out from under the tall arch of the western gate, there was an unnatural silence, as if everything were holding its breath.

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’ The boukolos often sounded put out when confronted by things outside his limited experience.

  ‘That is poetry that is. That old centurion, the one who was always drunk, always quoting that he was ... you know the one, the Sassanids got him somewhere downriver, cut his balls off, and his cock- shoved them down his throat.
’ The telones shook his head again. ‘Poor bastard. Anyway, today is the ides of March. The day Julius Caesar was murdered by some of his friends. Not a good day to start out on something, not what you would call a day of good omen.’

  Just beyond the Palmyrene Gate Ballista had halted his small mounted force to reorder for the march. Two equites singulares were put on point duty in front, and one at each side and the rear. The northerner did not intend to be surprised if he could help it. Ballista would lead the main body with Maximus, Romulus and Demetrius. The two scribes and two messengers would ride next, then the five servants leading the five packhorses. The other five equites singulares would form the end of the column. Ordered like a miniature army, scouts out and baggage in the middle, the force was as ready as it could be for any trouble-not that trouble was expected.

  This was a straightforward tour of inspection. The small fort of Castellum Arabum, garrison to twenty camel-riding dromedarii from Cohors XX, lay to the south-east, some thirty miles as the crow flies, some forty-five by road. Castellum Arabum was now the furthest south of Rome’s possessions on the Euphrates. It was the tripwire that was intended to warn of the coming of the Sassanids. No enemy had yet been seen. Local experts assured Ballista that it took time for the Sassanids to assemble their forces in the spring; they would not come until April, when there was grass for their horses and no danger of rain ruining their bowstrings. No hostile encounters were expected on this trip: two days’ easy ride down, a day to look at the defences and make a speech to hearten the dromedarii, and two easy days’ ride back.

  As the men on point duty rode off to take up their positions, Ballista looked back at Arete. Bricklayers still plied their methodical trade, facing the earth, rubble and layers of reeds that formed its core but the great glacis that fronted the western wall was in essence complete. The 500 paces that separated Ballista from it was now a wasteland. Scattered low piles of broken bricks and smashed stones were all that remained of the once proud tower tombs of the necropolis.